And the Rat Laughed - By Nava Semel Page 0,29
in the dark. I started slamming the switch, banging on it so hard that I almost broke it, then suddenly the light went back on.
My legs ran up the stairs. I don’t know how to explain it, I don’t know why myself, but I shut my eyes. I went up in the dark and it was my own darkness. I could taste it, chew it even. That darkness got stuck between my teeth, in my throat, in my stomach, between my legs...
I wanted to throw up.
And even when I really wanted to open my eyes I couldn’t, as if something stronger than me was keeping them shut. I didn’t even have enough power left for my own soul.
I’ve never been so scared in my whole life. I don’t know how to explain it. I kept running up the stairs. I wasn’t even sure I hadn’t run too far, right past her floor. The fear and the darkness made me feel somehow that there was a light beyond my own body. Maybe that’s what kept me from falling.
Why did the rat laugh?
It seemed as if I was hearing that laughter rolling through the stairwell.
As far as the bomb-shelter underneath the house.
I have a question for you, Miri. Would you happen to know what Stash means?
Have you ever heard the word Stash? Because it doesn’t mean a thing to me. Though it does kind of reverberate. As though I’ve heard it lots of times and I simply can’t remember it.
I’ll tell you the truth. I thought I was hearing Stash in the stairwell, but I wasn’t really sure it was my grandmother’s voice, because she was upstairs and I was downstairs, so how could I have heard it at such a distance? Maybe it was just my imagination. You know. Being afraid and everything.
Her door on the third floor was wide open, and the light was trickling out. Dim, pale, trembling, but still it was light.
She was standing in the doorway and I couldn’t make out her face because I was blinded from opening my eyes all at once. Now they opened without difficulty, as if they’d never been shut tight.
I said Grandma, Grandma, and that name seemed real to me. As real as can be.
Grandma, give me your hand. I can’t see you.
Then I hugged her, and I felt her hugging me back, and her face was so close.
And I could feel her beads too, close to my heart.
But then I had the strangest thought. Stefan the Rat. Now I called him by his name. You see, Miri, I’d found ... a kind of consola ... I was so happy that there was something human in the pit with her.
Part Three
The Poems
From: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, December 31st, 2009, 5:48a.m.
Subject: RE: death&life
Listen, Cookie, last night I hit on this site – really weird, horrible, disgusting – you’ve got to check it out. The poems are totally crazy, I mean they have nothing to do with anything, at least not anything we know. I have no idea who wrote them or why, and maybe it doesn’t even matter.
The poems – or maybe they’re words that have come undone – just showed up while I was surfing some house-pet sites. I always wind up discovering the most important sites by accident. I tried to resist at first, even tried some evasion tactics, but it was stronger than me, and against my better judgment I found myself inside. Then, curiosity got the better of me and I tried to figure out who was behind the little girl and the rat, but I couldn’t. And it isn’t that tracking people down is a mission impossible, but I don’t have the right qualifications. Maybe you can crack it. I mean, you’re the real hacker around here.
The poems are in Hebrew, but in Latin fonts, from left to right, and you’ll see that the order keeps changing. Only the last one is always last. I translated them for you, though I’m sure you’d be able to understand them even without my help.
The writer – I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman – decomposes the world into the most basic concepts, but presents them the other way around. You’ll sense it – the innards pouring out.
And there’s no going back.
The little girl and the rat are deep inside me now, and I can tell I’ll never be able to put them behind me. Couldn’t even eat or drink since I fell into it. All day long